J.W.R. Whitehand

The making of the urban landscape

Preface. 1. Introduction. 2. Commercial Cores. 3. Institutional and Public Areas. 4. Residential Areas. 5. Urban Landscape Management. 6. Conclusion. References. Index.

Fringe belts and the recycling of urban land: an academic concept and planning practice

It has been well established by urban morphologists that fringe-belt development is an integral part of the historico-geographical development of cities, but such development has attracted little attention from planners. Despite the physical distinctiveness of Birminghams Edwardian fringe belt, decisionmaking about its development is largely site-by-site. Its survival as a concentric zone with a high incidence of green space partly reflects the fact that the character and occupation of the individual sites of which it is composed have become deeply rooted in the mental maps of those able to influence change. Awareness of the fringe belt as an entity is rare: few landowners, developers, or planners see individual sites as integrated parts of the historical and ecological development of the city as a whole. Initially, pressure to redevelop fringe-belt plots has come largely from landowners. The proposed changes are often at variance with the predilections of local planners. Planners have a sectional perception, strongly related to the land use of cities. For developers, an interest in sites other than the one to which their planning application relates is almost entirely limited to the effects that adjacent sites might have on the viability of their proposal. The integrative quality of the fringe-belt concept is an important aspect of its potential as a citywide planning construct.

Urban fringe belts: Development of an idea

The fringe‐belt concept, first formulated in Germany some 50 years ago, has its origins in the recognition by Louis of the long‐term significance of physical limitations on urban growth, notably city walls. Developed by Conzen in Britain in the post‐war period, it became the foundation for a morphological theory of urban growth and change. The concept was disseminated widely in the 1970s, although it has only been taken up by scholars outside the English‐speaking world in the 1980s. Significant developments have been the establishment of the relationship between fringe belts on the one hand and building cycles, rent theory, innovation, family life cycles, and social areas on the other. Interest in the fringe‐belt concept beyond the discipline of geography would seem to be only just beginning. Fringe belts present both opportunities for, and constraints on, town planning. This applies both where they have initially formed parts of town planning schemes and, as is more commonly the case, where they have dev...

An assessment of 'Progress'

When Progress in Geography (PIG) was launched in 1969 it aimed to provide international reviews of current research in geography. One of its two offspring in 1977, Progress in Human Geography (PIHG), had a similar aim for the human branch of the discipline. It is appropriate, 21 years after the founding of the parent journal, to assess, in relation to these aims and the performance of other human geography journals, the impact that PIHG is having. Researchers make their own qualitative judgments about journals. These are in some degree reflected in their usage and recommendation of them both as

Comparing Traditional Urban Form in China and Europe: A Fringe-Belt Approach

Urban growth and transformation across the world are presenting great challenges for the comprehension and management of urban landscape change. Comparative urban morphology makes it possible to identify urban forms common to different geographical regions, while helping to distinguish unique historical characteristics and developments important for towns and cities in the hunt for place identity and prestige. The fringe-belt concept provides a frame of reference for depicting, explaining, and comparing the physical structure and historical development of urban landscapes. The walled cities of Pingyao, China and Como, Italy possess well-preserved historical urban environments that reflect the urban development traditions of their respective cultures. Newly available cartographic evidence and field work reveal critical differences between the embedded fringe belts of the two cities resulting from different historico-geographical dynamics. Pingyaos single composite fringe belt and Comos three distinct belts challenge current understanding of urban structural processes and argue for more focused urban landscape management.

Urban Morphogenesis at the Microscale: How Houses Change

The incidence of change to existing houses and gardens within Englands interwar residential areas is examined, the focus being on sample areas originally developed by private enterprise in Birmingham and London. Larger-scale changes, mostly subject to development control by the local authority, notably the building of additional houses within existing gardens, subdivisions and amalgamations of houses, changes of use, extensions and other significant structural works, are distinguished from changes initiated by households without planning permission, and often without building permission, such as changes to chimneys, reroofing, and changes to doors, windows, porches, and gardens. Changes subject to development control are negatively correlated, and smaller-scale changes are positively correlated, with the dwelling density at which the sample areas were originally developed. Among the factors responsible for this are the greater susceptibility of the areas of higher dwelling density to the contagious diffusion of minor and cosmetic changes.

Commercial townscapes in the making

Abstract The building types constructed between 1916 and 1965 in the central areas of two British towns Northampton, a free-standing county town, and Watford, a suburban town are examined in terms of the characteristics of the owners and architects responsible for their creation and the varied factors, local and national, affecting commercial building. Although local firms exercised considerable control over new building throughout the inter-war period in Northampton and local individuals played a major role in the 1920s in Watford, the overriding theme of the paper is the impact of the large-scale entry of retail chain-stores into development for owner occupation in the 1930s, and the growing involvement of property companies and insurance companies in speculative development after the mid-1950s. As the two town centres became integrated into the national commercial network and the national property market, outside architects and new architectural styles were increasingly employed, although speculative developers tended to be slower to adopt new styles than owner-occupiers and buildings in pre-war styles were constructed for a considerable period after both world wars in one or both of the town centres. The influx of outside owners and architects was accompanied by increases in the scale of development and the domination of new building by modern architecture. Other important factors influencing the character of development were the different historical legacies of the two towns. Watfords proximity to London, changes in the sizes of spheres of influence of the two centres, and the nature of property ownership within and on the edge of the two commercial cores.

Suburban cramming and development control

Summary The more intensive development of existing, low‐density residential areas by private enterprise is investigated in sample areas in South‐East England and the Midlands between 1960 and 1987. On average the areas in the South East underwent greater development pressure (measured by numbers of planning applications and appeals per site), more influence by local authorities (particularly through the refusal of planning applications), more attempts by developers to use initial planning approvals as stepping stones to more profitable approvals, and more complex and protracted interactions between applicants and local authorities. There was considerable variability between individual study areas. Decision making by local authorities was related much more to the circumstances of individual sites than to formal plans. Pre‐development activities tended to be particularly protracted where private individuals were among the applicants and where multiple‐dwelling developments were attempted. Doubt is cast on t...

The creators of England's inter-war suburbs

Despite the transformation of English cities by the growth of suburbs in the inter-war years, there is a dearth of reliable information about the processes, and especially the firms, that brought these suburbs into existence. Contrary to accepted wisdom – and paradoxically, in view of the scorn heaped upon suburbs by the architectural literati – architects are shown to have been heavily involved in the preparation of building applications for the construction of suburban houses. In spite of the unprecedented amount of house building in the inter-war period, the geographical spheres of influence of both builders and architects were highly localized. However, unlike in the nineteenth century, there is little evidence of speculative building having been undertaken by people whose livelihood was not primarily derived from house building or house selling.

Fringe Belts and Socioeconomic Change in China

The fringe-belt concept, though much studied by urban morphologists in the West, has been largely uninvestigated in the markedly different cultural environments of Eastern Asia. After an outline of the concept and considerations relating to its investigation in China, a fringe-belt study is carried out in the Chinese city of Pingyao. Comparisons are made with the findings of previous fringe-belt studies. The major fringe belt that has developed in Pingyao has features characteristic of fringe belts in the West but others that reflect a succession of different policies by authoritarian Chinese governments in the course of the twentieth century. The need for thorough morphological investigations as a basis for sound conservation planning is highlighted.